Summary
In this article we hope to have proved that there are as arace no pygmies in Melanesia but only peoples of small stature, resembling very much the peoples of normal stature. This makes it very probable that the so-called pygmies in other parts of the world arenot real pygmies but merely modifications of the people of normal stature caused by the influence of the mode of life and of nutrition. This theory is by the fact, that the “Pygmies” have nowhere their own language and that in their culture there is nothing separating them from other “parasitic-living” peoples of normal stature.
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Weitere literatur zur pygmäenfrage
Van dem Broek, Über Pygmäen in Niederländisch-Indien, Z. Ethnologie (1913).
Braunholtz, Note on a special exhibition, Man 121 (1936).
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Reed, Negritos of Zambals, Manila 1904.
Weule, Zwergvölker in Neuguinea, Globus82, 247.
Williams, The Natives of Mount Hagen, Man 114 (1937).
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Speiser, F. Die Pygmäenfrage. Experientia 2, 297–302 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02157049
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02157049